Minions with 1hp - Can anyone justify this?

[Switchback]

It would seem, contrary to many claims in posts earlier, that minions are *not* monsters in and of themselves.

If you have read the thread you know this is not true. Or else Vampire Spawn do not exist in the world. Only Vampire Lords exist. Because they are obviously not the same thing with different HP. Likewise Legion Devils and Angels, etc. Page 4 of the MM makes it very clear where a monsters name goes in a stat block and that it represents a real unique creature in the game world.

If Vampire Spawn do exist in your world and if they have 1 HP in combat, then yes, they are are monsters in and of themselves. They are also minions. If you give them more than 1 HP, that means you have house ruled minions to be something other than the rules say.

When it is said that minions are a rules abstraction, They are likely referring to the mechanic of their HP being fungible and that they only have 1 HP in combat with players.

If it were not, the MM would not have gone and created specific lore for Minions that do not exist in a Standard form of the same type.

It should also be noted that in the Monster Manual glossary they did not carry over the line about them being an abstraction. Probably to dampen down further chances of confusion.

You might not think Minions are justified, but they are here in 4e nonetheless. If it makes it any easier to understand, I would think of Minions in my head as actually having some small number of HP as the Devs originally wished them to. Perhaps 1* their level, but which simply get ignored for bookkeeping reasons in combat. But keeping this in mind allows you to understand that a minion would not be killed in a combat with a cat, no matter how lucky the cat was.

 

[Goumindong]

I would not call this minion vs. non-minion.

In your Steven Seagall movies, I see it as a high level fighter (Seagall is certainly paragon, and in many of his movies, could even be borderline epic) enters a room full of low level fighters (mostly all level 1 with a possible few exceptions of level 2, 3, or maybe a rare level 4).

The entire point of minions is that Segal as a high level fighter would be bored fighting low level fighters to the point that low level fighters should not even be there. He still has to try, dodge attacks et all. So they get statted as minions for the purpose of fighting Segal because otherwise its impossible for Segal to have a challenging fight with a bunch of guys

If there were level 3 or 4 fighters, Segals player would leave the table because its a bunch of boring junk. Levels, hit points, attack ratings, defenses etc etc etc are all just abstractions used to entertain the players. All of these disappear when dealing with NPCs. If the players are playing and you need mooks, you stat them as minions for the players. If you want a monster that is tough all on its own, you stat it as a solo monster. If you want a monster that is tougher than the rest, but not a lot tougher, you stat it as an elite monster.

Why do we do this? Because at the fringes of to-hit rolls the game becomes too static. Its too easy when you can't be hit and its too hard when you can't hit your enemies. So if you make an enemy hard by increasing its level to the point where it stands in for 5 enemies, it would just wallop your normal party(E.G. if you were level 5 and wanted to add a monster to fight alone you would have to go to level 14 in order to reach XP parity, if you need info on why this is bad, go ahead and get a level 5 party and have them fight a Night Hag(lvl 14 Lurker) then Young Black Dragon(Lv 5 Solo Lurker) with the same resources). As such, instead of increasing levels to make a creature harder we add a solo template and now its a challenge alone. Instead of increasing levels to make a creature a bit tougher than the normal guys we add a template.

Its the same the other way around. Instead of subtracting levels to have a bunch of guys we can use, we apply the minion template.

This way its still fun to fight the big guys and to fight the small guys.

Even Seagall is known to hit these mooks with combinations, striking them several times to bring down a mook. Other mooks he one-shots, maybe using stuff that 4e might call encounter powers, or maybe just good rolls with his at-wills...

Maybe Segal has multliple attack rolls in some of his encounter powers?

So for now, my own interpretation is that Felix and Garfield might try to take on a 30th level minion, but even if they both rolled 20's, their damage wouldn't affect that particular minion. Only the PC's can take off that hit point. Wrong or right, for the time being that's how I'm houseruling it.

That is not a house rule, that is the RAW/RAI

 

[Ninja-to]

Hm I didn't say minions aren't justified, I said the opposite. I like them, they make perfect sense to me now.

When I talk about minions not existing in the world, I'm talking about outside of combat. Minions don't wander around the world afraid of things that can do 1HP damage to them. They're a tool for combat purposes only. Don't try to reason how the world exists with minions living their daily lives with only 1HP. Use minions as a convenience. This is what I mean by them not existing in and of themselves. They're not meant to exist outside of their roles in combat with PC's. They're an abstraction, like a shift or a held action or other combat abstraction. It just happens that this combat abstraction is a creature in 4th Edition and that's what some people can't seem to get their head around.

 

[Switchback]

They make perfect sense to me as well. I think I get what you are saying as well, but its overly confusing.

The 1 HP is the thing that is an abstraction not the existence of the creatures themselves.

 

[Goumindong]

Hm I didn't say minions aren't justified, I said the opposite. I like them, they make perfect sense to me now.

The confusion might have come from you arguing the other way earlier in the thread. Even if you changed your mind it might not be entirely obvious that you had.

 

[Ninja-to]

It's not just the 1HP. If it were, you could apply 1HP to any monster and call it a minion. It's the entire concept of the creature that is the abstraction.

In all honesty, it probably doesn't make much difference anyway whether or not you want to say 'minion' just means '1HP', as long as you understand that minions are not meant to wander the countryside alone, fearing anything that could take their 1HP away. They should only fear PC's (or maybe their own superiors) during a battle. I'd go so far as to say don't call a minion a creature, it's almost a combat situation like a 'condition,' like being prone or slowed.

"You're slowed! You can only move 2 squares."
"You're minioned! You're going to have to use up actions to clear the battlefield. Oh they can also hurt you now, unlike in previous editions."

 

[Goumindong]

If you have read the thread you know this is not true. Or else Vampire Spawn do not exist in the world. Only Vampire Lords exist. Because they are obviously not the same thing with different HP. Likewise Legion Devils and Angels, etc. Page 4 of the MM makes it very clear where a monsters name goes in a stat block and that it represents a real unique creature in the game world.

If Vampire Spawn do exist in your world and if they have 1 HP in combat, then yes, they are are monsters in and of themselves. They are also minions. If you give them more than 1 HP, that means you have house ruled minions to be something other than the rules say.

(short version since I lost the post)
No. All stat block entries are abstractions for how they interact with players. They are there are guides for DM's to pick monsters that behave how they want an encounter to run.

Whether or not the monsters exist is irrelevant. Because how they interact with each other has little to nothing to do with their stat block except maybe as a reference to general power. When a vampire spawn interacts with a vampire it might be as a level 5 lurker, when it interacts with level 2 PCs it might be as a level 5 skirmisher and not a level 10 minion. It all depends on how powerful the PC's are and what type of enemy the DM wants them to fight.

 

[Ninja-to]

The confusion might have come from you arguing the other way earlier in the thread. Even if you changed your mind it might not be entirely obvious that you had.

Yeah could be. Earlier in the thread I was confused about how and why they exist, but now I've come to understand their purpose and how they should (and shouldn't) be used so I'm clear on them now, especially in how to use them in combat.

Admittedly it still takes a little brain power to have them safely interact with dangerous objects/terrain (that might do automatic damage). But my quick and dirty houserule of them not being affected by minor damage, just as they aren't with missed attacks, seems to work well enough for now.

 

[Switchback]

It's not just the 1HP. If it were, you could apply 1HP to any monster and call it a minion. It's the entire concept of the creature that is the abstraction.

....as long as you understand that minions are not meant to wander the countryside alone, fearing anything that could take their 1HP away.

Not exactly. It's true they wouldn't wander the countryside fearing anything that could take their 1 HP away, because only players or heroes can do that.

But its not true that a DM could not have them wandering alone. Let's look at Legion Devils again. A DM could have a Pit Fiend sitting outside a town and sending his dozen Legion Devil Hellguards into a town *alone* to raze it to the ground. Unless that town had high level adventurers, there is nothing the townsfolk could do to stop them. Not one Legion Devil would likely die in the process.

But in come the heroes to save the town. Suddenly the Legion Devils enter combat and have 1 HP. For a party of three, that would actually be somewhat of a even experience encounter. Though more likely it would make sense for the Pit Fiend to show up and join the fight. But I'm just showing how the context of these creatures can be used in the world where you don't have to fear for their monster lives just because of the 1 HP thing.

 

[Switchback]

(short version since I lost the post)
No. All stat block entries are abstractions for how they interact with players. They are there are guides for DM's to pick monsters that behave how they want an encounter to run.

Whether or not the monsters exist is irrelevant. Because how they interact with each other has little to nothing to do with their stat block except maybe as a reference to general power. When a vampire spawn interacts with a vampire it might be as a level 5 lurker, when it interacts with level 2 PCs it might be as a level 5 skirmisher and not a level 10 minion. It all depends on how powerful the PC's are and what type of enemy the DM wants them to fight.

You are really missing my point there by virtually saying everything off camera is DM fiat. That goes without saying. But it doesn't add much to the discussion really.

It *is* important for people to understand if minions exist as creatures apart from fighting the players. Because players might have to track down the results of Legion Devils destroying a town, if they can't exist except in fighting the players, then how did that happen? If a DM doesn't understand that he can use these creatures in other ways, then he is misunderstanding the ecology of the Monsters.

You might fashion an adventure where a group of Vampire Spawn attacks a campsite of NPC's and the players have to track them back to their lord's castle. If the a DM thinks Vampire Spawn don't exist, can't exist, except in a battle, then he cannot even create that scenario. Because it is not very fitting with something a much more powerful Vampire Lord is going to be doing.

We are talking at the nuts and bolts level of practicality here not D&D philosophy about how a Orc becomes dust and wind once he goes around the corner into a shadow.